Twice a year keeps most apartments here honest. Cook a lot, own a pet, live over a bus route or under a radiator, and you move to every four. Here is how to tell which one you are.
Deep cleans booked most often in
Marisol T. called us from a fourth-floor walk-up on 31st Avenue in Astoria. She had lived in that apartment for six years and she cleaned it every Sunday. Counters wiped, floors mopped, bathroom sprayed down, the whole routine. And she still could not work out why the place felt tired. The kitchen smelled faintly of old oil no matter what she did. Her allergies got worse every October, right when the radiators came on. She said the sentence we hear more than any other: "I clean all the time, so why does it never feel clean?"
We sent someone out for a deep clean on a Thursday. Four and a half hours. Inside the oven, the grout in the shower, the top of every door frame, the fins of both radiators, the gap between the stove and the counter, the vent above the range that had never once been opened. Marisol texted a photo of the radiator brush afterwards. It was grey. She has booked a deep clean every six months since, with a bi-weekly standard visit in between, and she has not asked that question again.
Here is the short answer to the question that brought you to this page. Most New York City apartments need a full deep clean every four to six months. Six months is the baseline for a quiet studio or a one bedroom with one person, no pets, and a kitchen that mostly makes coffee. Four months is right for the rest of us: cooking most nights, a cat or a dog, kids, a radiator under a window, a ground-floor unit on a bus route, or a bathroom with no window in it. Its the difference between staying ahead of buildup and chasing it.
We are Green Hands Cleaning Services Corp, based at 22-16 79th Street in East Elmhurst, and we have cleaned homes across Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan since 2015. This guide walks through how often to deep clean an apartment here, room by room, what actually changes between a standard visit and a deep cleaning service in New York City, and how to build a schedule you will actually keep.
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Tap a code to copy it, then mention it when you book. One code per household, and they do not stack.
New clients
10 % off
Code FIRST10
Ten percent off the first visit, whichever service you start with. The easiest way to see how we work before you commit to a schedule.
Most flexible
5 % off
Code FLEX5
Give us a four-hour window instead of a fixed hour and we can route more efficiently. That saving comes back to you on every visit.
Biggest saving
$30 off
Code RESET30
Thirty dollars off a first deep clean or a move-in / move-out clean, the two jobs where the difference is most visible when you walk back in.
Your neighbors
Same pre-war walk-ups, same narrow galley kitchens, same radiator under the window. Unedited reviews from people a few streets away.
Sarah M.
Park Slope, Brooklyn · end-of-lease deep clean
We were moving out of our Park Slope walk-up and needed the place spotless to get our deposit back. They even got the grout looking brand new. Full deposit back, no questions asked.
Emily K.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn · nesting deep clean
With a newborn due in two weeks I needed a nesting deep clean for the nursery. They cleaned and helped organize the baby's room, and the whole place felt calm again.
Amanda D.
Lower East Side, Manhattan · pre-listing
We are putting our LES apartment on the market. The deep clean made every surface shine and got rid of all the pet dander before the open house.
The schedule
Answer these honestly and you will know whether your a four-month apartment or a six-month one.
Cooking two or three nights a week puts a film of aerosolized grease on the cabinet fronts, the backsplash, the range hood and the wall behind the stove. You cannot see it for about three months. Then you wipe one cabinet door and see the clean square you just made. Cook most nights and you are on a four-month cycle, no argument.
Steam radiators bake settled dust onto their own fins and then push it back into the the room all winter. Add a rug and you have a dust reservoir that a weekly vacuum only skims. If you have both, deep clean before heating season starts in October and again in spring.
Dander and dust mites live in soft surfaces, and mites feed on skin cells rather than dirt, so a tidy apartment can still be full of them. Households in this category do best at every four months, with mattress and upholstery work included in the visit.
Most New York bathrooms do not. Moisture sits, grout absorbs it, and pink or black film appears in the corners of the tub within weeks. A windowless bathroom is the single strongest argument for a four-month interval in an otherwise quiet apartment.
Hover a room to see what we cover
Every four to six months
A deep clean is the standard checklist plus everything the standard checklist deliberately leaves alone. It takes two to three times as long, and its the only visit that resets an apartment rather than maintaining it. If you have never had one in your current place, book that first and then pick a maintenance rhythm afterwards. Doing it the other way round is how people loose faith in cleaning services.
Dust is not only a housekeeping problem. The EPA's guide to indoor air quality is worth ten minutes if anyone in your home has asthma, and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America explains why bedding and upholstery matter more than floors.
We are …
… roughly forty cleaners working out of East Elmhurst, most of whom have been with us for years. The person who does your first deep clean is the person we try to send back for the next one, because they already know where the buildup was.
You clean every weekend and it still never feels finished.
Twice a year, someone resets it properly.
Then weekly upkeep is enough.
The result
Real New York apartments, the evening after we finished. Ovens emptied, grout scrubbed, radiators brushed out, baseboards wiped, everything back where it belongs.
What we do
A deep clean is one of them. The other five are what keeps the gap between deep cleans comfortable.
Inside the oven and fridge, grout, baseboards, door frames, vents, radiator fins and behind furniture. The visit that resets an apartment.
View serviceKitchen, bathrooms, floors, dusting and surfaces on the rhythm that stretches the time between deep cleans.
View serviceLight tidying, laundry, bed linens and dishes alongside the standard clean, for homes that need more than surfaces.
View serviceEmpty-unit clean top to bottom, cabinets and closets included, timed around your lease dates and deposit inspection.
View serviceOffices, studios and small retail, after hours or before opening, on a schedule that fits your week.
View serviceFine dust removal after a renovation, including fixtures, window tracks and every horizontal surface twice over.
View serviceIncluded with every booking
Room by room
The kitchen sets the clock for the whole apartment. Cooking oil goes airborne, lands on cabinet fronts and the wall behind the stove, and then collects dust on top of itself. After about three months it stops wiping off and starts needing a degreaser.
Grout is porous, and a bathroom with no window never fully dries between showers. A weekly spray keeps the surface clean but does nothing to what has soaked in. Grout wants a hand scrub with a brush three or four times a year, not a wipe.
Bedrooms look clean longer than they are. Dust mites live in the mattress and the pillows, and they do not care how tidy the room is. Twice a year is enough for most people, but drop to every four months if anyone wakes up congested.
Hardwood in a pre-war building has gaps, and those gaps hold grit that scratches the finish every time someone walks across it. Radiators need brushing out before the heat comes on in October. Window tracks in this city fill with street soot faster than anyone expects.
What clients say
I came back from three weeks away to a disaster zone. They were there the next morning and it was a relief to come home to a sanctuary.
My mother lives alone on the UES and cannot manage the heavy cleaning anymore. The team is compassionate and thorough, and she now looks forward to their visits.
We hosted a large engagement party at our Soho loft and the place was trashed. They handled the sticky floors and the mountain of trash effortlessly.
I was prepping for my in-laws first visit and was overwhelmed by clutter. My place looked better than when I moved in, and my mother-in-law noticed how fresh it smelled.
After a renovation our apartment was covered in construction dust. They got into every crevice, so we could move furniture back without breathing debris.
Two kids and a demanding schedule meant I had fallen behind. Bi-weekly cleaning has been a game changer because they tackle the deep cleaning I never have time for.
My partner was moving in and we needed a blank slate. They deep cleaned the whole space before he arrived with all his boxes.
My husband came home from surgery and the last thing we needed was dust in the air. The deep clean made the apartment a hygienic place for him to recover.
The checklist
Every visit works through the same checklist, in the same order, top to bottom so nothing we knock loose lands on a surface we already finished. A deep clean is not a different list. It is this list plus the items underneath it, which is why it takes two to three times as long.
01
The recurring visit. Every item, every time.
02
Everything in the standard clean, plus:
03
Everything in the standard and deep clean, plus:
Cleaning products, sprays and cloths all come with us. For hygiene reasons we do not carry vacuums and mops between homes, so we ask that yours are available on the day. If you want fragrance-free or pet-safe products, say so when you book and that is what we bring, at no extra charge.
In detail
approach
An apartment in this city is not a small house. The radiator bakes dust on every winter. The tub has no window over it, so it holds moisture. One closet does the work of four, and the kitchen is three feet from the sofa, so cooking grease reaches the whole room. We built our deep clean checklist around those specifics rather than a generic room list, and we keep notes on your home so nothing has to be re-explained the next time.
Our standard
apartments
In a pre-war building in Astoria or Sunnyside the plaster sheds a chalky dust that settles on picture frames and sill tops, and the floors have gaps that hold grit. In a newer Long Island City tower the windows do not open, the HVAC vents hold dust, and floor-to-ceiling glass shows every mark. Both need a deep clean twice a year. They do not need the same one.
Older buildings get more attention on sills, frames and floor seams. Newer ones get vents, tracks and glass. Ask about apartment cleaning in New York City, or your neighborhood: Long Island City or Astoria.
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the baseline visit
This is the checklist and nothing more, priced by home size. A studio or one bedroom runs two to three hours with one cleaner. Kitchen and bathrooms reset, surfaces dusted, floors vacuumed and mopped, beds made, bins emptied. Nothing that requires moving an appliance or opening an oven door.
Run this weekly or bi-weekly and your deep clean interval stretches from four months toward six, because buildup never gets a head start. If you want the difference spelled out, we wrote deep cleaning vs standard cleaning for exactly that question.
See what is included
houses and multi-floor homes
Condos, lofts, townhouses and brownstones. Stairs collect more dust than any other surface in a home, so treads risers and the banister get done everytime we visit rather than every deep clean. Multi-floor homes also mean two or three bathrooms, and bathrooms are the fastest part of a house to slip.
A townhouse in Park Slope or Fort Greene generally wants a deep clean every four months on the main floors and every six on the top floor, which nobody uses as hard. We quote the whole house flat, by size and bathroom count.
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between the deep cleans
Dishes, laundry, linens changed, towels swapped, clutter put back where it lives. This is the difference between an apartment that is clean and an apartment that is also in order, and its usually the thing people are actually missing when they say the place never feels finished.
Households that run a maid service weekly can comfortably sit at the six month end of the deep clean range, because soft surfaces and bedding are being handled continuously rather than twice a year.
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lease dates and deposits
Empty rooms hide the most, because everything furniture was covering is suddenly visible. Empty cabinets and drawers wiped inside, closet shelves and rods, inside the oven and fridge, the gap beside the stove where things fall, window tracks, and the scuffs on the wall where a sofa sat for four years.
Worth knowing your rights. The New York security deposit statute sets out what a landlord may and may not deduct, and ordinary wear and tear is not deductible. A clean apartment plus a dated photo set is how you win that argument. Book seven or more days ahead and code RESET30 takes $30 off. See end of lease cleaning or the move-out checklist.
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the discount ladder
Weekly takes 25% off every visit, bi-weekly 15%, monthly 10%, for as long as you stay on the plan. Bi-weekly is the right answer for most one and two bedroom apartments in this city. Weekly makes sense with kids, pets, or a household where someone cooks every night. Monthly works for a quiet studio with a deep clean twice a year on top.
Reschedule or skip free up to 24 hours ahead, because everyone has a week that falls apart. See custom cleaning plans, or compare what a visit costs in apartment cleaning costs in New York City.
See the discounts
no plan, no commitment
Before a party, after a party, before the in-laws land, or just to see whether you like us before going recurring. There is no contract and no minimum. A first deep clean in an apartment that has never had one takes longer than a repeat visit, so we quote it on home size and how long it has been rather than pretending every apartment is the same.
If you are not sure which you need, book the one time deep clean first. It tells you more about your apartment than any quote form can, and you can set a schedule afterwards with real information.
Book a one time clean
same day, every week
Same cleaner, same day, same written list, week after week. This suits clients who work long hours or travel most weeks and want to stop thinking about it entirely. We keep notes on your home, so nothing has to be re-explained and the standard does not drift.
Housekeeping clients still book a deep clean twice a year. The difference is that theirs takes three hours instead of six, because nothing has been allowed to build up in the first place.
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when it cannot wait
Call before about 11am and we can usually reach you the same day. Queens and north Brooklyn are easiest, Manhattan below 96th Street is usually doable, and the further out you are the more notice helps. Same day slots are standard cleans by default. A same day deep clean depends entirely on what is open.
If the reason you need someone today is that guests land tonight, say so when you call and we will prioritise the rooms they will actually see. Its a different order of work.
Check today's slots
turnovers
Checkout at 11, check-in at 3. Linens reset, restocked, staged back to your listing photos, and damage flagged before the next guest finds it. Short-term rentals need a full deep clean far more often than a home does, because a unit turning over weekly takes roughly a year of normal wear every three months.
We deep clean most short-term rentals every eight to twelve weeks and run standard turnovers in between. Hosts can read our Airbnb cleaning tips for the parts guests notice first.
Discover nowthe full range
Renovation dust is finer than household dust, so it settles again after you finish. HEPA vacuum, several passes hours apart, door frame tops and radiator fins.
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The April reset. Windows, screens, closets swapped over, and every radiator brushed out before it sits unused for six months.
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One room doing four jobs. Studios need the same deep clean interval as a one bedroom, because everything happens in the same air.
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Sealed windows, HVAC vents and floor-to-ceiling glass. Vents and tracks matter more here than floors do.
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High ceilings mean dust settles slower and lands wider. Light fixtures, beams and the tops of everything tall.
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More glass, more terrace, more surfaces the weather reaches. Usually every four months rather than six.
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Entry instructions, a key, and a written report when we leave. You never have to be home for any of it.
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Patient, unhurried, and careful with what matters. Deep cleans scheduled in daylight hours by default.
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The nesting clean before, and the every-four-months clean after. Fragrance-free by default in a home with a newborn.
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Recurring plans
Set a rhythm and the discount applies to every visit, automatically. No contract, no cancellation fee, and you can change or pause it whenever you like.
For busy households and full schedules
25% off every visit
Your home never leaves its best state.
Cancel any time · no fee
Our most popular rhythm
15% off every visit
The sweet spot for most New York apartments.
Cancel any time · no fee
A steady reset on the calendar
10% off every visit
Keeps things from ever getting away from you.
Cancel any time · no fee
Discounts apply automatically to every visit for as long as you stay on the plan, and are quoted flat by home size before anyone arrives.
Questions
Every answer is open. Nothing to click, nothing to expand.
Every four to six months for most apartments. Six months works for a quiet studio or one bedroom with one person, light cooking, no pets and a bathroom with a window. Four months is right if you cook most nights, have a pet, have a radiator under a window, or your bathroom has no window. Drop to every three months with young kids, two or more pets, or anyone in the home who has asthma.
A regular clean maintains what is already clean: surfaces, floors, sinks, the outside of appliances, bins and beds. A deep clean adds everything the regular list deliberately skips because it takes too long — inside the oven, inside the fridge, grout scrubbed by hand, baseboards, door frames, cabinet fronts, vents, radiator fins, window tracks and behind furniture we can safely move.
In practice a deep clean takes two to three times as long as a standard visit in the same apartment. That is the whole difference in one sentence.
A studio or one bedroom that has had a deep clean before usually takes three to four hours with one cleaner. A first-ever deep clean in the same apartment can run five or six. Two bedrooms with two bathrooms is typically a half day, and we will often send two people so you get your evening back.
No. Most clients give us entry instructions or a key and go about their day. Tell us how you would like us to get in when you book. For a deep clean it does help if someone is reachable by phone, because we sometimes find something worth asking about before we touch it.
Yes, the cleaning products are included: sprays, solutions, paper towels and sponges all come with us.
For hygiene reasons we do not transport vacuums and mops between homes, since that can spread bacteria or even bedbugs. We kindly ask that you provide your own vacuum, mop and toilet bowl brush if they are needed for the job. If that is a problem, we are happy to bring a Swiffer mop with disposable wet pads instead — just give us a heads-up when you book.
Late September or early October, before the radiators come on, and again in April once the heat goes off. Those two dates are the natural bookends of the dust year in this city. If you only ever book one deep clean, make it the autumn one, because heating season is what pushes settled dust back into the air you breathe all winter.
You can, and plenty of people do. Work top to bottom so nothing you knock loose lands on a finished surface, give the oven and the grout their own separate session, and expect a full weekend for a one bedroom. One rule we never break, and neither should you: never mix bleach with ammonia or with any acidic cleaner. It produces a toxic gas, and in a windowless New York bathroom that is genuinely dangerous. The American Lung Association has a plain-language page on cleaning products and indoor air that is worth five minutes.
We quote flat by home size and scope, not by the hour, so the number does not move once you have it. A deep clean costs meaningfully more than a standard visit because it takes meaningfully longer. First-time clients save 10% with FIRST10, and if you set a recurring schedule afterwards the standard visits drop 10 to 25%.
Tell us within 24 hours and we come back and re-clean the area at no charge. That applies to deep cleans the same as everything else.
Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan below 96th Street, including Astoria, Long Island City, Jackson Heights, Forest Hills, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Chelsea and the Upper West Side. Ask if you are just outside those.
Testimonials
We booked them to clean our vacation rental between guests and they did an outstanding job. The apartment looked pristine and smelled amazing, which our Airbnb guests really appreciated. I will never use another service for my turnarounds.
I was hosting Thanksgiving and dreading the cleanup. The team came the day before and did a complete deep clean of my kitchen and living room. It took all the pressure off and I actually enjoyed the holiday.
I had been struggling to keep up since my divorce and the apartment just felt heavy. The deep clean transformed the place. It felt like a fresh start, and the space became easier to manage.
I am prepping my DUMBO apartment for my parents first visit since I moved in, and the windows and floors were my biggest stress points until they handled it.
Katherine J.
DUMBO, Brooklyn · deep clean
Ready when you are
Tell us your home size and pick a day. You recieve a flat quote before anyone arrives, and first-time clients save 10% with FIRST10.
Where we clean
Most of our cleaners live in Queens, so Queens and north Brooklyn get the widest choice of deep clean slots. Manhattan below 96th Street we cover every day, and a half-day deep clean there usually wants a week of notice.
Queens
Brooklyn
All of Brooklyn22-16 79th Street
East Elmhurst, NY 11370
Green Hands
Cleaning Services
Insured, background-checked cleaners serving Queens, Brooklyn & Manhattan since 2015.
📅 Book a cleaning →22-16 79th Street, East Elmhurst, NY 11370, United States
